Spiraling to the bottom

The economy is still puttering along, which is to say it is still not strong enough to help a lot of average Americans.

The overall unemployment rate dropped slightly to 7.4 percent in the latest jobs report, but despite 34 straight months of job creation, the rate of growth is far below what is needed to provide opportunities to millions of unemployed Americans.

I am no economist, but does anyone really believe there will be any significant dip in the unemployment rate when the math — businesses moving jobs overseas, politicians slashing government spending (some 750,000 jobs are expected to be lost through sequestration in 2013 alone) — doesn't add up?

The only rosy constant in this economy is that big corporations are still reeling in record profits. How are they doing it? Simple. By a laser focus on the bottom line.

How the bottom line breaks in their favor determines whether corporations create jobs here or overseas, whether they hire people or become automated, whether they research and develop products that enhance the quality of human lives or concentrate on products that create short-term profits.

The bottom line approach is not easily embraced by many Americans. There are those of us who continue to labor under the belief that work is a means of self-expression and that a job should contribute to the wholesome growth and sustainability of family and community.

I believe the majority of Americans still hold to this view, but what would happen if our society as a whole resorted to the corporate model of life, that is, pursuing it through the bottom line?

Apparently, the best chance of staying off the unemployment rolls (based on the July 2013 Jobs Reports lowest unemployment rates in various categories) is to be a white female, 20 or older (5.8), with a bachelor's degree and higher (3.8), foreign born (7.7), in management, business and financial operations (3.1).

So what would be wrong with policymakers then, beginning in preschool and continuing throughout the post-secondary experience, diligently screening out students who don't fit into the above employment categories?

Sure, there would be detractors complaining that this approach would disqualify a great majority of our potential workforce.

There might be those who would grumble that having such a narrow approach to job creation would destroy the country, that in addition to business owners and financial managers, we need doctors, nurses, teachers, public safety workers and the many other occupations that help build families and communities.

There might be those who would argue that such a job model would lead to alienation, despondency and destructive behavior by those left out.

Well, you could easily brush those naysayers aside by suggesting that they are engaging in divisive politics, or you could scold them and their constituents for not working hard and for not lifting themselves up by the bootstraps.

To those who might argue that not everybody can be a white female, you could respond that the facts don't matter. Sound familiar?

As ridiculous as it would be to operate an economy principally on the interests of white, foreign-born and college-educated females more than 20 years old, it is essentially the same bottom-line, one-dimensional economy we currently have: catering largely to corporate interests with the expectations that a little bit of their wealth will eventually trickle down to us all.